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Seeing a GP

SIR – Dr NW Bunting (Letters, November 25) says GP practices dealt with more than 28 million appointments in September.

But how many of these were carried out by GPS, and were they face-to-face or on the telephone?

It is easy to bandy about figures, but the truth is that for many people it remains very hard to see a GP. First you have to wait on the phone forever. Then you are quizzed by a nonmedical receptionist before being informed that all appointments have gone by one minute past eight in the morning. Roland Fry Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

SIR – “Naming and shaming” GP practices (report, November 24) will damage patient care. “League tables” take no account of the different circumstances affecting practices and only cause mistrust and fear for patients about the care they are receiving.

Behind your headline lies the fact that GPS and their teams last month delivered a record 36.1 million consultations, almost 40 per cent of these on the day they were booked and more than 71 per cent in person, the highest proportion since before the pandemic.

This was overlooked to feed the idea that remote care is “bad” and in-person care is “good”, when we know that safe, appropriate care is being delivered remotely and many patients find it convenient.

Our figures show that four in 10 GPS are already planning to quit in the next five years due to chronic workload and workforce pressures – and unfair scrutiny will only make this worse.

The Government should focus on delivering the 6,000 more GPS promised in its manifesto, not on demonising and demoralising hardworking GPS who are keeping the NHS upright. Professor Kamila Hawthorne Chair, Royal College of GPS London NW1

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2022-11-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

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